I'm a huge Electra Dyne fan and I'd like to bring this sub forum back from the brink of death. Tell us about your experiences with the amp. Tell us about your likes/dislikes or maybe how you've coped with the shared controls. I never hear of anyone playing this amp. It seems it's fading into obscurity. Anyone still playing this amp that loves it like I do?
I have the 27" 1x12 combo, in standard black tolex, and I love it. It is VERY heavy, but I love it so much that I lug this beast all over the place to gigs, and even unnecessarily to rehearsals and such. I have a Deluxe Reverb and some nice dirt pedals that I could use for rehearsals, but this thing just kicks ***! I rarely even plug in my Deluxe any more. This is a thick sounding amp. At rehearsal it makes the other guy's amp sound like a toy.
The Electra Dyne is two amps in one: an American clean amp, and a British-inspired gained up amp. A lot of people don't care for amps like this because it sounds like switching between two different amps - they sound completely different. And I agree somewhat. But I use the amp like this: American cleans with dirt pedals for gain, OR British gain with a TS-9 boost for higher gain. The Hi mode with a boost is a fire-breather, but still open and not very compressed. For compressed, liquid solos I use the Clean mode with dirt pedals. Sometimes I kick on my Compressor pedal with boosted Vintage Hi for some cool modded old-school leads. With a song that has, for instance, a clean verse/dirty chorus, I just use the Clean mode with pedals for the overdriven parts. We play "When I Come Around" by Green Day, and the Electra Dyne set to Vintage Lo with a TS-9 boost in front sounds amazing!
I had some trouble balancing the volume levels with my low output single coils at first, but now I have that figured out. The taper of the volume pot is different when in Clean mode than it is in Lo/Hi, we all know this. But, you can use this to your advantage. With high output pickups, there's not as much of a volume jump when you add gain as there is with singles. For instance: with single coils, your overdrive pedal can give you massive volume boost when the level is cranked. With singles, running moderate gain settings on your dirt pedal requires a low setting of the level pot to achieve unity gain with the pedal bypassed. ANYWAYS, my point is that you can adjust the Electra Dyne's Volume knob to achieve close volume levels across all three modes. With my low output singles(Lindy Fralin Blues Specials), I keep the Volume set around 2:00 - 2:30. With my moderate output bridge humbucker(Dimarzio AT-1), I set the volume lower, around 1:00-1:30. Therefore, the HOTTER your pickups the LOWER the Volume must be set to achieve unity volume across all three modes. LOW OUTPUT pickups need the Volume set HIGHER. (All this is with the Clean Level control maxed and Gain Trim switch set to Normal).
How do you guys use the Electra Dyne?
Is it too Heavy?
Do the shared controls ruin it for you?
Anyone got some custom tolex Electra Dynes out there? Anyone got one with white knobs?
Anyone modded an Electra Dyne?
I'm gonna go play it now.
I have the 27" 1x12 combo, in standard black tolex, and I love it. It is VERY heavy, but I love it so much that I lug this beast all over the place to gigs, and even unnecessarily to rehearsals and such. I have a Deluxe Reverb and some nice dirt pedals that I could use for rehearsals, but this thing just kicks ***! I rarely even plug in my Deluxe any more. This is a thick sounding amp. At rehearsal it makes the other guy's amp sound like a toy.
The Electra Dyne is two amps in one: an American clean amp, and a British-inspired gained up amp. A lot of people don't care for amps like this because it sounds like switching between two different amps - they sound completely different. And I agree somewhat. But I use the amp like this: American cleans with dirt pedals for gain, OR British gain with a TS-9 boost for higher gain. The Hi mode with a boost is a fire-breather, but still open and not very compressed. For compressed, liquid solos I use the Clean mode with dirt pedals. Sometimes I kick on my Compressor pedal with boosted Vintage Hi for some cool modded old-school leads. With a song that has, for instance, a clean verse/dirty chorus, I just use the Clean mode with pedals for the overdriven parts. We play "When I Come Around" by Green Day, and the Electra Dyne set to Vintage Lo with a TS-9 boost in front sounds amazing!
I had some trouble balancing the volume levels with my low output single coils at first, but now I have that figured out. The taper of the volume pot is different when in Clean mode than it is in Lo/Hi, we all know this. But, you can use this to your advantage. With high output pickups, there's not as much of a volume jump when you add gain as there is with singles. For instance: with single coils, your overdrive pedal can give you massive volume boost when the level is cranked. With singles, running moderate gain settings on your dirt pedal requires a low setting of the level pot to achieve unity gain with the pedal bypassed. ANYWAYS, my point is that you can adjust the Electra Dyne's Volume knob to achieve close volume levels across all three modes. With my low output singles(Lindy Fralin Blues Specials), I keep the Volume set around 2:00 - 2:30. With my moderate output bridge humbucker(Dimarzio AT-1), I set the volume lower, around 1:00-1:30. Therefore, the HOTTER your pickups the LOWER the Volume must be set to achieve unity volume across all three modes. LOW OUTPUT pickups need the Volume set HIGHER. (All this is with the Clean Level control maxed and Gain Trim switch set to Normal).
How do you guys use the Electra Dyne?
Is it too Heavy?
Do the shared controls ruin it for you?
Anyone got some custom tolex Electra Dynes out there? Anyone got one with white knobs?
Anyone modded an Electra Dyne?
I'm gonna go play it now.